


Cheep, Used & Available

by InsominiacArrest



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Human, F/F, Fluff and Humor, Fun, meet angry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-10
Updated: 2016-09-10
Packaged: 2018-08-14 06:05:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,306
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8001289
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InsominiacArrest/pseuds/InsominiacArrest
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>‘I go straight for the last college textbook on the shelf and we meet when I try to wrestle you for it’ AU</p><p>my <a href="http://insomniac-arrest.tumblr.com/">tumblr</a></p>
            </blockquote>





	Cheep, Used & Available

**Author's Note:**

> this was such a fun story I wanted to make it it's own fic instead part of my collections

Lapis had a rule about not standing in lines. Not at amusement parks, not at popular restaurants, and damn well not at the bathroom- she would just hold it. She did not like standing around with her hands full and the looming sensation of being trapped. Yeah, Lapis would pass.

One of the longest lines she had ever encountered was the first few days of college at the university bookstore. The lines went sideways, left, right, out the door and into the street and probably the moon, Lapis picked up and walked right out of that room.

She didn’t really care that it was her first year and she should ‘start right away,’ she’d wait a week before buying any of her textbooks.

Sure, the books after a week were beat-up, broken-binding, ‘old, cheap and available’ types. She flipped through the last of three anthropology books left, the previous owner had highlighted every time the text said ‘homo erectus’ and written ‘lol’ next to it.

Lapis snorts and puts it in her basket.

She picked up two more books with broken spines and one more someone looked like they cried on before dumping in coffee, she folds her list backwards to reach the end, she was almost out of there. 

She surveyed several shelves, muttering under her breath ‘Turabian Writers Manual.’ She felt her stomach drop when she noticed the empty shelf- she was already behind in reading for that course.

She made a face and got on her knees, spotting one at the very bottom and exhaling in relief.

“Aha!” Lapis jumps, a hand shoots out and grasps at the book in front of her, Lapis immediately growls and puts her hand on it too.

“Hey!” Lapis turns around to find a petite blonde girl with glasses perched on her nose. Her hand was also on the Turabian Writers Manual seventh edition.

“Hey yourself.” Lapis says with a grimace.

The girl sticks out her bottom lip, and then clears her throat. “Ahem. My name is Peridot.” She says evenly, “and I am…I would like…Well.” Peridot seemed to struggle with the words. “This book.”  
  
Lapis’s eyes go wide, “Yah.” She says slowly. “Nah.” She growls again and yanks at the book in her direction, Peridot manages to hold on to it and pulls back.

“I just switched into the class! I really need it.” It sounded like a whine.

Lapis shook her head, “well, I was always in this class, and they are actually making us read it.” A strong argument in her head as they each try to strong arm the other out of the product.

Lapis finally kicks her gently in the knee and wrestles it out of her hands, “haha!” She spouts in glee and rolls to her feet, not even caring at one of the dead-eyed employees staring at them.

“No fair.” The girl sat crossed legged and frowned. “It’ll be a week before their next shipment comes in.” She sniffs.

“All’s fair in war and Freshman English,” Lapis says lazily and goes to put it in her basket.

Peridot sat up straighter, “I’ll pay you double for it.”

Lapis pauses at that sentence, eyeing her. Sure, Lapis liked not failing most her tests, but she also like coffee money a little more.

“Yeah?”  
  
“In, uh, tutoring?” She smiles wearily up at her and Lapis notices the holes in her jeans and secondhand backpack.

“Pass.” Lapis fluffs her hair and goes to leave.

Peridot wilts on the ground and appears to mope, “I’m a great tutor.” She continues, Lapis shakes her head.

She goes to the checkout line, and feels a twinge of something that resembled her humanity: telling her to be decent towards small, freshman scholarship students.

She sighs, Peridot stood behind her in the empty check out line and Lapis yanked at the band on her wrist, hard.

She turns around quickly, “you know the Fat Frog Cafe?”  
  
“Uh, no?” Peridot says questioningly as the cashier waves them over towards her.

“Yeah, well, sometimes I hang out there, and sometimes I study.” Lapis scratches her wrist and wrinkles her nose, “if you want to…swing by, I can let you borrow the book now and then.”  
  
Peridot breaks out into a huge smile and Lapis sighed from the too-bright stars in her eyes.

“Thank you!”

“Yeah,” Lapis waves her off and rushes to check out. Her humanity applauds her and she mentally flips it off.

——————

Peridot showed up the very next time Lapis goes to The Fat Frog, a barn themed frog cafe that was more hipster than functional.

The theme was colored walls with clashing patterns and low tables over long couches and square chairs that only technically counted as furniture.

Lapis sat in the cafe with a book over her knee and a rubber band in her hand, she was watching the stretchiness of the material, pulling it back and forth until it snapped. Then she getting out another.

Hozier crooned in the background of her headphones and her essay remained unwritten besides her name at the top and a large title reading ‘TITLE.’ The document was saved as ‘fck me m8 :)’.

Lapis was bobbing her head up and down and stretching the rubber band back and forth when something tapped on her shoulders.

Lapis languidly turns her head and finds the same blonde, wide-eyed bookstore girl. She tilts her head and reclines backwards, “sup.”

Peridot’s smile strains. “Hello. It’s Peridot.”  
  
Lapis nods and takes her headphones out, “Per-per, yeah. Lapis Lazuli.” She points at herself and takes a sip of her three shots of espresso.

Peridot shifted from side to side and then scratched her neck, “you said I could borrow your book sometimes.” She talked like she was trying to translate human language into robot.

Lapis hums and taps her foot on the table, “aight, but I am still using it.”  
  
Peridot nodded and scooted Lapis over a little to sit down next to her, “have you finished the essay? It’s pretty in depth for a short story, but not bad if I do say so myself.”  
  
Lapis glanced at her empty word document and narrowed her eyes at it, “yes.”

“I just needed to check up on some of the citation rules they wanted us to follow, and those passages they wanted us to read for Friday.”  
  
Lapis hummed and glanced at Peridot getting out her beat-up dell lap top and stacking her books out beside her. She was staying.

Peridot opened her already written six page essay and Lapis cranes her neck as far as she can, she whistles. “Sooooo, what did you write about for it?”

Peridot tip-taps on her keyboard without looking up, “the objectification of the everyday blue collar worker against the ever present eye of society.”

“Ah.” Lapis says evenly and then stretches her rubber band back and forth.

“You, uh got that from the story?”

“Sure! A&P is really an open book with content.” Peridot snorts and Lapis furrows her brow. “It’s like it’s trying to be deep.” Peridot gets up, “I’ll be right back.”  
  
Peridot got up to get some sort of Vietnamese coffee they happened to serve, and Lapis passed their shared text book over to Peridot.

Peridot came back with the sweet drink and a pleased cat-like grin.

“Mmmm,” Lapis flips through the textbook, “someone highlighted every single word in pink and wrote the lyrics to Guns and Roses on half the pages…so that’s fun.” Lapis comments dryly.

Peridot just nods, “legible enough. Though honestly, I would never be adding this class if I didn’t have to- who knew they didn’t take IB scores at this place!”  
  
Lapis was ready to pull out her own eyelashes, “who knew.”

Peridot was friendly as a kitten with boundary issues and a sense of self-aggrandizement. She was studying computer science as well as media analysis (for CPH apparently). She liked ketchup but not tomatoes, she enjoyed cracking her back and hated burning her tongue on things.

Lapis just told her she hated doing laundry- and standing in lines.

Lapis was assessing her as a grade A nerd that maybe she should shake off, but then Peridot pointed to her computer screen.

“What do _you_ think A &P is about then?” She asks slowly, “Because I could…help you.”  
  
Lapis shakes her head, “it’s about some horny kid who sees a hot chick and quits his job.” She says bluntly, “relatable.”

Peridot shakes her head, “it’s about consumerism! Freedom. The time period.”

“Okay,” Lapis breaths in through her mouth, “help me out here. Freedom- I like that. Discuss.”  
  
Peridot slides her glasses back up and then cleans them, “the bathing suits, and description of the young girls…”  
  
Peridot tells her about the story and Lapis finds herself actually putting her fingers down onto the keyboard, she might be able to complete this by 9 am tomorrow.

Peridot helps her hammer out some analysis that wasn’t just screaming and Lapis saying words in no particular order.

It’s 1 am when Lapis watches Peridot start to nod her head up and down, Lapis tells her she can go home.

She chuckles, “I don’t normally stay up this late.”

“Then go to the dorms already.” Lapis kicks her, but Peridot just stretches out and yawns.

“You’re not done yet. Plus, I still have an article left and some code to finish.” She murmurs with another yawn, Lapis rolls her eyes.

She lets her stay, but soon feels the soft head of the young girl hit her shoulder, Lapis sighs deeply, but puts up with it. Her essay was on the teacher’s desk at 9:25.

————–

They continue to meet at the Fat Frog at least twice a week, and Peridot gives her pointers and Lapis does her hair and teachers her how to turn her hand into a turkey.

“So what _do_ you want to do?” Peridot asks one day as Lapis pins Peridot’s fly-away strands away from her face.

“I ‘unno.” Lapis articles with bobby-pins between her teeth, she takes one out. “Dude I’m not even declared.”

“I know,” Peridot says as she peers up at her.

“Besides,” Lapis says with a twitch of her lips, “I’m waiting for people to be able to upload themselves into computers. Then I’ll care- immortality or bust.” She winks and Peridot continues to type up her Life History paper.

“Very nihilistic of you.”  
  
Lapis finishes taking the unruly hair and putting it above her eye line, “you haven’t even seen me in philosophy class. Plato, me and the frat boys are mortal enemies.”

Peridot smiles softly in the glow of her screen, “I’m sure.”  
  
They discuss classes, their future and Lapis tells Peridot to go to sleep for once, “you can’t just keep staying up all night with me. This is only how I live, I’m immune.”  
  
Peridot blinks at her, “I like it. It’s fine, now I use energy drinks outside of WoW marathons.”  
  
Lapis elbows her, “come one, what if you get a date? You’ll want to look fresh and bright-eyed then.”

Peridot doesn’t meet her eye, “why would I want a date?” She wrinkles her nose. “College kids are 90% gross.”  
  
Lapis rolls her eyes, “What’s the other 10% then?”  
  
Peridot’s mouth hangs open, her tongue moves but no sound comes out. She blushes and then shuts her mouth, “my hot TA in Life History.” She says instead and looks away.

Lapis laughs and goes back to trying to put Peridot’s hair back up. “You are wild.” They go quiet for awhile and Lapis starts nodding off herself as the lights grow dim.

“Do you?” Peridot asks with her face turned away.

“Do what?” Lapis replies as she studies her nails and her anth. books lays neglected.

“You know.” Peridot almost choked. “Date.”

Lapis shook besides her, “depends on the person.” She says evenly, toying with the ends of her own hair. “….Do you think I should dye the ends of my hair purple?”

“No.” Peridot says quickly and threads her fingers through Lapis’s hair, “I like it.” They turn away and leave a little earlier that night.

———————-

The end of the semester bit Lapis in the ass like a sudden shark attack that she saw coming like an out control blimp billowing towards her.

It was a sudden rush of all the readings she hadn’t done, flashcards and a very long paper on the phallic traits of hyena’s.

She would like to say she would have gotten through it alone, but she stayed with Peridot every night, helping keep each other stay grounded, and not drive their health into the dirt. Peridot began crashing at her dorm when Lapis’s roommate disappeared and Peridot’s roommate collected trysts like a 612 piece puzzle.

The final night of the Fat Frog they teased each other, recited Shakespearean short stories and Lapis felt the ‘almost’ moment people live for. Almost close enough, almost losing her pulse to a fluttering of feelings, almost.

She closes her eyes accidentally and falls asleep that night, cursing herself in the morning.

She turns over on the colorful couch to find her things put away and her book lying open with a ‘go to page 62’ written in sharpie. Lapis turns the pink-highlighted pages.

_Dear Lapis. It is 4:30 (in the morning) and you are asleep, drooling on my shoulder by the way. I will forgive you for this and stealing my book for the semester if you go to dinner with me next friday. Maybe wear that black sweater?_

_-P_

Lapis smiles and can’t stop smiling. She hands the book back to Peridot the next day. “You return it.” Lapis whispers and then runs away quickly.

She can hear Peridot squealing behind her when she opened it and read the ‘yes’ on every page.


End file.
